When students returned to campus this fall, the dust was still settling from September 11, and many were searching for answers. They found a natural place to turn: the Stanford faculty. Some 327 students enrolled in Technology in National Security —up from 145 last year. Beginning Arabic? International Politics? The same phenomenon. “I see a change in student awareness,” says associate professor of electrical engineering Greg Kovacs. “We have students coming in and saying, ‘I want to do something practical and applied to help now.’”
Many professors are also doing something to help now, by shifting their research emphases and advising policy-makers.
Paul Ehrlich, a professor of biological sciences, and Jack Liu, on leave from Michigan State, initiated their research project during a 49-hour car ride back to the Bay Area from Washington, D.C., where they were on September 11. They are examining the impact of changes in population structure—such as the increasing proportion of young men—on the growth of terrorism. David Spiegel, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is conducting an online survey of people’s responses to stress in the aftermath of the attacks (coping.stanford.edu). And associate professor of psychology John Gabrieli is part of a multiuniversity study collecting information about people’s memories and feelings upon hearing of the events.
For others, the attacks have meant more attention—and the prospect of additional funding—for ongoing projects. Kovacs, PhD ’90, MD ’92, for example, uses chip technology to detect changes in the physiological state of living tissues. A computer can then determine if a biological or chemical agent is present. Developmental biology professor Lucy Shapiro is working on a new class of antibiotics that will not be available for at least three years, but could fight anthrax and several other bioweapons. And David Relman, an associate professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, continues to develop methods for detecting and recognizing infectious diseases by examining gene expression patterns in blood and other fluids. These techniques might eventually allow military or civilian populations to be monitored so the flu could be distinguished from, say, anthrax, at an early stage.
The federal government has called on several faculty members to contribute their expertise. Michael McFaul, ’86, MA ’86, an associate professor of political science, spent a good bit of fall quarter commuting between the Farm and Washington, D.C., where he consulted with congressional and administration officials about the possibility of building a new foundation for Russian-American relations. Economist Mark McClellan, on leave in the nation’s capital as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been coordinating proposals to assist workers displaced by the attacks; as a senior policy director for the White House on health-care issues, he also helped develop a policy on bioterrorism. And law professors Deborah Hensler and Robert Rabin were asked by the American Bar Association’s task force on terrorism and the law to help evaluate regulations for the federal government’s September 11 victims’ compensation fund, ensuring fairness in the distribution of payments and protection against fraudulent claims.
Humanists, too, have been hard at work, trying to harness the power of art, literature and history to help us cope with tragedy. In mid-September, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Stanford’s ensemble-in-residence, was on tour performing a work prompted by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The composer, associate professor of music Jonathan Berger, DMA ’82, has since added an arrangement of a spiritual as a tribute to the September 11 victims. And classics professor Richard Martin says he is finding new meaning in depictions of violence, revenge, civilization and mortality in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Noting that both epic poems offer insights about the limits of humanity, Martin says, “I am sure my Stanford colleagues who study other voices of the rich ancient past are discovering the same impulse to re-examine and make use of that past in the harsh light of the present day.”
